CleverDonkey.com …Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel

They say that money can’t buy happiness, and they’re right, but there is a certain amount of joy in finding a product or service that provides you with happiness and utility far beyond the purchase price.  These can be inexpensive doo-dads or expensive gew-gaws, the key to making our list is that the product give us smiles that far exceed the pain of parting with the precious pesos.

Here’s the list:

Oxo Good Grips Magnetic Clips (large and small):  We have dozens of these little guys all over our refrigerator, both the large and small versions.  The big ones work great as chip clips and for larger clipping jobs, and the small ones, which actually have stronger magnets, do great at holding pictures/papers/doodads to the fridge, and also for smaller clipping jobs.

Perfect Tear Chrome Paper Towel Holder:  In

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Riveter? Check. Cure cancer? Check. Housewife? Check.

Human history has seen very few widespread, dramatic changes the likes of which occured with the Industrial Revolution.  The most profound social effect of this is arguably the female influx into the labor force (precipitated, in the United States at least, by the two World Wars), and follow-on women’s liberation movement. Prior to the 1900s, most abrupt changes to the human situation involved physical disaster or nasty, fast-moving microbes.  Thus having minimized much of the destructive natural-world forces via a ”perfect storm” of industrialization, sanitation, automation, and mobilization, America could move up a rung on the Maslow Hierarchy and focus on productivity, fulfillment, and equality.  And America’s women could start stepping up and carving out more options

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"Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave." -- Henry Peter Broughan

There are many problems that our new president will face on day one of his administration.  The economy.  War in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Terrorism.  Energy policy.  Global climate change.  Etc.  And I, as an American voter, should expect that important issues will be addressed quickly, with the most urgent issues being tackled first.  When I project to the first 100 days of the new president and speculate as to what will be his first, major policy undertaking – the one that will set to tone for his administration – I realize that there is one over-arching, all-important issue that serves as the foundation of solving all other issues.

Education.

Education is the only lever we can use to

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President Powell. Has a ring to it, no?

We just watched Colin Powell on Meet the Press with Tom Brokaw, and I just have to ask, why isn’t he one of our choices for President?  He is the kind of person that we need in the job, but I don’t think our system can deliver him up, because he’s not a power-hungry, megalomaniacal clown.  He’s a smart, wise, thoughtful public servant, and he’s just what we need in the White House.  Someone with experience and respect on both sides of the aisle, and around the world.

I might waste my vote on a write-in for him.

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NOTE:  I am not a doctor and this post is simply me relating my personal experiences.  Consult with your doctor before making any health-related decisions or taking any health-related actions.

Update 10/12/2008 – It has now been TWO YEARS since I’ve had any type of cold, flu, sinus infection, or sore/scratchy throat.  Two years, clean as a whistle, and it’s due almost completely to using the neti pot whenever I feel a tickle/cough coming on, plus using it once a month regardless.  Original article is below, from 12/2/2007.

Starting in my mid-20′s (I’m mid-40′s now) I began having recurring respiratory issues.  I considered them to be “colds”, as I was coughing and stuffy with a scratchy throat.  A few times it was bad enough for me to drag myself to the doctor.  Twice it developed into bronchitis.  But, in

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The world will little note, nor long remember, these two chumps

The 2008 US Presidential Election is a month away.  We are approaching the end of nearly two years of constant campaigning by a dwindling pool of potential candidates, and we are down to the final two.  And I have to say, if these two represent the absolute best that America has to offer, we are in a sorry state indeed.

One is a self-described “maverick” who nonetheless has decided to pander to the most intolerant and extreme elements of his constituency, whom he had previously ignored.  The other is a self-described agent of change who picked at 6-term Senator as his running mate and who has professional lobbyists working on his campaign delivering his message of “no lobbyists”.

These are our choices?  Obama or

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Okey-dokey, thanks...but no thanks.

I have a theory that John McCain picked Sarah Palin with the express purpose of losing the election.  There can be no other explanation.  This is a woman that he had met only once before naming her as his running mate.  Nobody in the lower 48 had ever heard of her, and as we learn more about her the choice by McCain seems more and more insane.

This is a woman who can’t name a Supreme Court decision, or name a newspaper or magazine that she’s read regularly, and I’m beginning to doubt she can see Russia from her house.  She is so unequivocally unqualified to be Vice President that it’s like we’ve entered an alternate dimension where they’re holding a bizarro-election.

There is no way that her selection has helped the McCain campaign or

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We Are Not Men

Idiocracy is the latest film by Mike Judge, who also created Office Space.  It was released in 2006, playing in only a handful of theaters with no advance publicity of any kind, and it quickly made the jump to DVD.  However, if there is any movie in recent memory that SHOULD have played endlessly at the multiplexes of America, it was Idiocracy.

As we here in the United States drown in a downward spiral of reality TV, processed foods, bombastic advertising, mindlessly large corporations, zombified workforces, and borderline retarded elected leaders, Idiocracy perfectly describes the water with devastatingly funny, sadly accurate satire and wit.

The story revolves around Joe (Luke Wilson), a current-day soldier who is selected, along with Rita (Maya Rudolph), to participate in a year-long human hibernation study.  However, while they are

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